TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[bloodtide]

Only if you presume your players literally never care about anything other than grabby-hands wealth-acquisition.

They might care about other things, but greed is a near universal thing.

1. There is absolutely a choice, the characters can say "royal vault, forget that - where going to do something else..." and not bother with the gold key.

Sure the players can always just walk out of a game.

2. Forgetting that, the players have only 1 choice ok. But let's say you present 3 different choices, but they actually all lead to the same place, no matter what the players actually do - that's railroading.

Not at all. In one, players are given the truth - "this is what you're doing if you want to follow the adventure...". In the other, railroading, the DM pretends there are multiple choices, but there really are not. The situation is not the same.

Sure, but the flaw here is the DM presenting the three choices.

Railroading occurs when you pretend that players can exercise choice, while actually denying them choice. That's it.

This is just really any time the players feel like complaining. Too many players feel the game world reality should just be altered at their whim. And when it does not happen: they cry railroad.

Hence, if the players get why you're doing this and (tacitly) agree it's legitimate, or if they're so swept up in the moment that it never occurs to them to do anything else, then cool. They're clearly on board this train, they aren't being railroaded, they're being transportedto where they want to go.

It's when the players don't actually agree and aren't actually swept up in it...but the DM uses tools like this to coerce their agreement out of them, no matter what...that we have a problem. And that can absolutely happen even if the DM only uses any particular tool once and only once per campaign.

I agree: any random thing the players don't like or don't agree with and they will cry railroad.

The idea that the players should or must agree with the DM at all times is just silly.

Even for simple things. The characters find a bandit hideout, and the players have them run back to town. The "wacky player plan" is for the characters to go to the local arch mage and have them fix everything. When the characters do finally get to the mage tower though: they find the archmage is not home.

And right here is where many players will rant and rave about a Railroad. "The DM made the archmage not home as a personal attack on me!"

 

[Umbran]

This idea that the character has total control and the player is simply along for the ride is hogwash.

Or, alternatively, it speaks to how the player might want to set priorities.

So long as you label the other person's position with such language, you will paint over their meaning so you are unlikely to see it.

 

[Umbran]

And right here is where many players will rant and rave about a Railroad. "The DM made the archmage not home as a personal attack on me!"

Mod Note:
It looks like you have taken the letter of warnings into account, but haven't thought further than that about how to engage in fruitful discussion.

So, no more of this discussion for you.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay. That is still the player choosing to model the character. They are still the one deciding how the character responds to events over time. For example, a traumatic event. The player chooses whether the character responds to that event by breaking down, or by being galvanized. Both responses are valid for literally anyone ever, and few people ever get to choose whether they are left broken by a horrible event or emboldened to fix things (whatever that might mean, good or bad).

This idea that the character has total control and the player is simply along for the ride is hogwash. It may be very obvious what the modeled character would do. That model is still run by, and dependent on, the choices of the player. Nearly constantly, in fact.

Again you are taking the language too literally, but the notion isn't hogwash. It is simply the idea that you create a character with clear goals, motives, and one that develops as it experiences things in the game. You then have a character whose goals and choices may be different from what you would prefer. So maybe you would rather run away and save your character from certain death, but there may be some crucial motivation that makes you think the character would risk death rather than run away in that moment. So you choose the latter. That is the character goal overriding the player goal. This happens all the time. No one is saying the player isn't the one making that choice, or that the player is simply there for the ride (like I stated before this notion that people literally think the character is real is a straw man). But clearly there are still two very different approaches to playing a character here: one where you make choices based on your personal goals and motives versus one where you try make choices based on what you think the goals and motives of the character are. You can add hyperbole to make it sound silly, but it isn't silly and people do this frequently without any issue.

Now, can this be taken into "it's what my character would do" jerk territory? Sure. That is a problem that can arise, and where that line is is going to vary from one group to the next. Playing your character doesn't shield you from obnoxious behavior at the table. It just means you are honestly trying to make choices as you think the character would

 

[billd91]

Have you looked at the current version? It's absolutely massive and includes bizarre but completely true things like the fact that Peru's national drink was created, in its modern form, by a Mormon who moved to Peru from Utah. And you can have that very drink, the pisco sour, in his bar. The amount of strange-but-true things in the adventure make me realize most D&D adventures aren't bizarre enough.

Even the earliest version of Masks is far from a linear adventure. It's node-based adventure design. There are 2 events that are ultimately set, the precipitating event and the final culmination of the antagonist plot. Everything else, while there may be breadcrumbs linking the various nodes, can be approached (or avoided) in any order the players choose. It may be efficient to visit and resolve scenes in a couple of nodes in a set order, but it's hardly mandated.

 

[S'mon]

Again you are taking the language too literally, but the notion isn't hogwash. It is simply the idea that you create a character with clear goals, motives, and one that develops as it experiences things in the game. You then have a character whose goals and choices may be different from what you would prefer. So maybe you would rather run away and save your character from certain death, but there may be some crucial motivation that makes you think the character would risk death rather than run away in that moment. So you choose the latter. That is the character goal overriding the player goal. This happens all the time. No one is saying the player isn't the one making that choice, or that the player is simply there for the ride (like I stated before this notion that people literally think the character is real is a straw man). But clearly there are still two very different approaches to playing a character here: one where you make choices based on your personal goals and motives versus one where you try make choices based on what you think the goals and motives of the character are. You can add hyperbole to make it sound silly, but it isn't silly and people do this frequently without any issue.

Now, can this be taken into "it's what my character would do" jerk territory? Sure. That is a problem that can arise, and where that line is is going to vary from one group to the next. Playing your character doesn't shield you from obnoxious behavior at the table. It just means you are honestly trying to make choices as you think the character would

Yes. I'd add that when you're really immersed in the character, it would feel really painful to switch to an unfeeling pawn stance - "Sure rescuing my true love would be nice, but that +3 Vorpal will really raise my DPS!" or even author stance "Hmm, I as Sir Palador would like to rescue my True Love before she's sacrificed to the Demon Lord, but wouldn't it be tragic if I were distracted by my obsession with gaining the Sword of Eurydice..."

 

[pemerton]

The term "adventurer" means the character is seeking adventure and hoping to acquire wealth along the way. If you aren't playing those sorts of characters, I wonder why you're playing AD&D at all.

Just as one example, maybe you're playing PCs in the original OA set-up. That still uses gp = XP (for most PCs, at least) but the way it establishes PC background and motivation doesn't put acquisition-of-wealth-by-way-of-dungeon-crawl-type-adventuring front and centre.

 

[Theory of Games]

How is that possible? The character is words. The player is alive. If the player decides the character is wrong and needs to change, how would you police that, even in principle? If the player decides they're done with the game, how could the character tell them no?

This is a completely nonsense statement. The character cannot trump the player any more than a manuscript can trump its author.


No, that's not what "adventurer" means.

It can mean someone in it for money. But the word only requires that you're seeking out exciting new experiences:

M-W: "someone who seeks dangerous or exciting experiences : a person who looks for adventures" (it liars examples of profit-seeking...but one of them clearly is not what D&D "adventurers" do, since it's venture capital)
Collins: "An adventurer is a person who enjoys going to new, unusual, and exciting places."
Dictionary.com: "1. a person who has, enjoys, or seeks adventures." (Lower-down meanings reference profit, but again, the point is that greed is NOT required nor even the primary sense.)

Adventurers seek out adventures: going to new and exciting places, meeting people, trying new foods, facing danger and feeling thrills, solving mysteries, etc., etc. Greed is not even slightly required.

Then you are not roleplaying. Simple.

 

[Theory of Games]

Just as one example, maybe you're playing PCs in the original OA set-up. That still uses gp = XP (for most PCs, at least) but the way it establishes PC background and motivation doesn't put acquisition-of-wealth-by-way-of-dungeon-crawl-type-adventuring front and centre.

Sure it does. You're being disingenuous here to make your point, clearly.

 

[pemerton]

Then you are not roleplaying. Simple.

Since we're talking about AD&D in this thread, here is how Gygax characterises roleplaying in his PHB (p 18):

Character class refers to the profession of the player character. The approach you wish to take to the game, how you believe you can most successfully meet the challenges which it poses, and which role you desire to play are dictated by character class (or multi-class).​

Taking on a role, in the game, means taking on a particular suite of capabilities and functions, determined primarily by class, and using them to meet the challenges that the game poses.

This is quite compatible with self-insert of personality, or with adopting a motivation that - subject to alignment considerations - is aimed overwhelmingly at the play of the game (ie exploring dungeons and acquiring the loot therein).

A focus on depicting a particular distinct personality is not essential to that. And once a player does decide to engage in such activity, the play of the classic game will come under pressure (eg suppose I sacrifice the loot to rescue the noble and take their hand in marriage, do I lose out on XP and hence level gain and hence getting a castle and followers? or have I discovered a different pathway to social progress that the game rules don't themselves set out?).

Hence the fudging, railroading etc that - as per the OP and as discussed in this thread - becomes fairly central (not necessarily universal) in later AD&D play.

But anyway, all this being said, I think thay @EzekielRaiden's point was a different one - namely, that the behaviour of an authored character always, in some literal sense, reflects the desires and personality of the author. Though the desires that will be reflected are desires for this fiction I wish to depict, which may not be the same as desires for how I would act were I in this fictional situation.